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Secondary School Foreign-Language Enrollments and Offerings, 1958–62

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

James N. Eshelman
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Extract

In 1948, approximately one student out of seven in the public high schools was studying a modern foreign language; in 1962 the ratio was one to every four—2.4 million MFL enrollments in a total high school population of 9.8 million.1 Contrary to popular belief, this gain began long before the launching of the first Sputnik startled the nation into a searching examination of its educational system, particularly in science and foreign language. There has, in fact, been an annual increase in the ratio of language enrollments to total high-school enrollment from 1948 to the present day, though the rate of increase rose sharply in 1959, after Sputnik and after the passage of the National Defense Education Act of 1958.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 79 , Issue 4-Part2 , September 1964 , pp. 107 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 by The Modern Language Association of America

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References

1 The research reported here was performed pursuant to Contract No. OE 2-14-033 with the U. S. Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The complete report, Foreign-Language Offerings and Enrollments in Secondary Schools, Public Schools: Fall 1961 and Fall 1962 and Nonpublic Schools: Fall 1962, by James N. Eshelman and N. W. Lian, contains 101 pages and may be obtained from the MLA Materials Center for $1.50. See this report for exact figures from 1958 to 1962 and enrollments by states. For exact enrollment figures prior to 1958, see William R. Parker, The National Interest and Foreign Languages, U. S. National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, third edition, 1961, also obtainable from the MLA Materials Center for $1.00.

2 Esther M. Eaton: Foreign Languages in Public Secondary Schools—Interim Report—A National Survey, Fall 1959. U. S. Office of Education, 1963.